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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Camwhoring shoe fashionista...

In the last leg of the denounciation of Chinese citizenship, the Zhengzhou authorities requested for a recent photograph of our girl (the one we submitted was taken at 4 months old, haha), and so we went to the photo studio, let her sit on Wayne's lap (he had on a white T-shirt), combed her hair and tried our best to make her look straight/not blink/keep her head at the perfect angle - she was quite a good girl and kept still... and ta-dah! A comparison of passport photos at 4 months and 19 months (almost)... it's quite different, isn't it? Our baby has turned into a girl, haha! She even knows how to call herself 'baby girl' these days.
This morning, we went out to AM/PM Xindong'an Plaza Nike store to get some new shoes for our girl, and spotted many of these multi-coloured figurines around - she was even bashful about taking a photo at first, burying her face into the third eye of the figurine...
And then she decided to pop out for a shot.
Then we saw more of these kinds of other figurines around, and our girl was immediately attracted to the 哥哥 and 姐姐, standing against them for photos.
She wasn't really sure how to pose with them until an older girl came along and went 'Yaaay!' whilst giving the peace sign.
And so Rosabelle followed suit, haha!
There were more of these cute figurines at the Sasha shop in the shopping mall, and Rosabelle ran forward and indicated to me that she wanted me to whip out the camera (put her fingers to her eyes and winked, in gesture of her taking a fake photo) - goodness, has she inherited her mother's genes in taking photos of anything and everything?
In any case, after our lunch at 一茶一坐 restaurant, we headed home to a very excited girl who was happy with her bounty of three pairs of shoes (bought one a size bigger for winter as it's of thicker material) and a Brazil soccer ball. We decided to get more since Wayne's ex-colleague had nicely given us a one-off 40% off coupon at the Nike store, heh!

That's her modeling willingly with two of the three pairs of shoes (she decided she wanted to mix and match on her own accord...), and such hooha probably kept her awake as she did not sleep after nursing and fell asleep only close to 5pm just now for her afternoon nap... geez...
On to other random updates in this post - new words spouted of late include 蚂蚁 (she saw an older girl play and tell her the other day, and the next day, Rosabelle pointed at the bushes and said the same thing...), 游戏 (as repeated in a Chinese story), Timothy (yes, as in Rachel's daddy, Uncle Timothy), and barley (the other day she was sick, I made barley drink for her and she loves eating the barley, so when we give her water now, she will ask if it's also barley, heh...).


She also loves saying 兜兜家 these days (as in her favourite Dou dou Ge ge), as two days back, Dou dou asked if she wanted to go to his place, and our girl came running towards me, screaming '要!要!要!', and when I asked what she wanted, she said '兜兜家', and proceeded to 'abandon' Wayne and I and went towards Doudou's grandma and held her hand to pull her away in the direction of home. There was drama when we reached their lift landing, as Doudou erratically only wanted Rosabelle to go to his home, and was pushing Weiwei Jie jie away, making both himself and Wei wei cry as the latter insisted on going in to play as well. Our sensible Rosabelle even went forward and held Doudou's hand and asked him to 'come', wanting him to go back into the house and not cry/throw a tantrum at the corridor. Obviously, kids being kids, Doudou and Weiwei still made up in the end, but not before alot of tears on their parts - strange behaviors, I must say!


Rosabelle also knows the 小兔子乖乖 song now, saying '妈妈' and '开开' at the correct parts. Just the day before, Wayne was doing push-ups on the floor and Rosabelle observed for a few seconds before getting down and bobbing her chin up and down to imitate her Daddy, who was obviously too tickled to continue excercising - she can now imitate the same action whenever we ask her 'how does Daddy do push-ups?'.


In other (seemingly) unrelated news/updates, there was once when Wei wei hugged her (it was still winter then - yes, it's waaaay back), causing her to lose her balance and fall backwards, hitting her head on the kerb. Luckily she was wearing her thick winter hat and winter jacket hood, but she of course cried, and I ran to pick her up as I could see it was a hard knock (not the usual type that I feign ignorance to). Sometimes, our girl will act 'manja' (娇气) and make 'hnnng, hnnng' noises before running to any of us to 抱抱 her after she hits against something, even if it's not painful, heh...so girl...


However, I must praise her for being real hardy as she once hit her head against the kerb when picking up something, fell and hit her forehead against the concrete floor once, and missed a step once when sitting, hitting her back hard against the edge (there was a blue-black the next day), but did not whine much (just a few seconds of cries).


This will train her into not being a cry-baby, I hope, in case of bullies, one that we encountered some time back when an older boy smacked her hard on the head and face when Rosabelle was in his way at the slides. My goodness, you can imagine my shackles going up and protective Mother Bear in me going 'RAWRRRRR!' as I screamed loudly '这是谁家的孩子啊?!这么坏!有病啊?!怎么可以这样打人?!' as I told him off in front of his grandma and ranted all the way as I carried Rosabelle away. All the rest of the guardians who knew me immediately ran over to see what was happening, as they'd never seen me lose my cool like this. I hate it when guardians turn a deaf ear when something like this happens - kids are clever, once you let them get away with murder, they will push their limits. I do not advocate beating/caning, but as I exclaimed loudly '什么样的家长就养出什么样的小孩,用暴力来解决问题!' .


In my previous post about kindergartens, and about preparing our girl skills/socially-wise (like how I had to quickly wash her hands when she picked up rat poison scattered in the bushes, thinking it was a stone - phew!), I guess it's all for the longer plan of me heading back to work eventually (it will mean I would have taken about 3 years off by then...gosh...). When I settle my girl in well, I will then have the mind to look for a job, heh...


I've been getting quite alot of enquiries from headhunters, and I do not normally pursue the opportunity unless I find it interesting enough, and some time back, this headhunter from BLA (I shall not reveal the real name as it's embarrassing for them) asked if I wanted to submit my resume for a PR Director role at XXX. Oh well, nothing to lose, I guess, as she convinced me of how I should 'come out of retirement' to try out this challenging and well-paying job. And the next day, I got a call from her colleague Miss A, her supposed manager, who totally put me off with her high-handed and haughty approach. In a gist, as a headhunter, they were the ones who approached me, and Miss A behaved as if I was the one begging to get this post. My gripes, as communicated clearly in a strongly-worded email (he followed up with a phone call to me and was most apologetic) to their China Managing Director, were as follows - details blanked out to protect identities of those concerned:


Hi Miss C,

I am sure your colleague, Miss A, has yesterday communicated to you my disinterest in the job opportunity with XXX that we were both in discussion prior.

Please kindly have it on record, and communicated clearly, to the Client, that I am actually keen on exploring this great opportunity with a well-esteemed, expanding Chinese company, and am actually excited about the vast opportunites/challenges the role brings. However, I found my discussion with Miss A very frustrating, as she was going around in circles and asking vague questions/providing unecessary details, to the point that it was mildly insulting.

As pointed out before, I am not particularly looking to re-enter the corporate world at this point, and even though my interest was piqued by your eagerness, I must say it has been dampened by your colleague's lack of professionalism and basic courtesy to a high-level candidate. In my experience dealing with professional search consultants/firms, I must admit an encounter with such appalling attitude displayed by a headhunter is the first for me.

Please officially have your Client, XXX, know on the record that since I do not wish to have further painful discussions of this nature with BLA, specifically your colleague Miss A , as long as she is handling this case, I have no further wish to pursue this further.

Thank you for your time, and wish you best in your search for the right candidate.

Regards,

Wendy LOH

Note: With copy to Ms. XXX and Mr. XXX, Managing Directors, BLA in Beijing


Miss A called me close to 7pm on a weekday, knowing I am a full-time mum, and did not even ask if it was a convenient time to talk, before proceeding to say that her 'subordinate' Miss C called me yesterday (I hate it when people use that term - I call my interns and Account Coordinators my colleagues, as it's derogatory to introduce people as such, even if that's what they are). She spent 15 minutes going round in circles and asked me 'What do I want from this job?' and asked if I can spend my time doing media relations, writing speeches/releases etc, going into mundane/nitty-gritty things before I asked her 'What does your client want?' - she went into a tirade about what investor relations was, and said 'For example, at their annual results, CEO speaks for 5 minutes, CFO speaks for 5 minutes...' and I really, literally, truly, closed my eyes at this point and said, 'Look, I know all these details, I've been there, done that - there is no need to explain to me, just let your Client know I do not want the job anymore,' and I hung up on her. I have never encountered any headhunter as unprofessional as this - so there, end of another random rant.

1 comment:

Piggy Family said...

Faint! Miss C think you don't know what investor relations is? We organised earnings presentations at Mileage 10 years ago though all I remember now is the excellent canapes and free booz at Raffles Hotel. haha.